Coomer went on to say that the 300 Steam Machine prototypes are high-end, high performance machines built with off-the-shelf parts and will be customisable at the user's discretion.

[The Steam Machine] is also fully upgradable, allowing any user to swap out the GPU, hard drive, CPU, even the motherboard if you really want to," wrote Coomers. "Apart from the custom enclosure, anyone can and build exactly the same machine by shopping for components and assembling it themselves. And we expect that at least a few people will do just that. (We'll also share the source CAD files for our enclosure, in case people want to replicate it as well)"

The Steam Machine spec list is just the latest piece of Valve's strategy to make in-roads into the living room gaming space. Over the last couple of weeks, Valve unveiled SteamOS, the existence of Steam Machines and the new Steam Controller.